Academic Job Interviews

Academic job interviews can take a variety of forms, and I’ve experienced a few different kinds of job interview – both from the perspective of a candidate, as well as from the perspective of a member of the interview panel. As with any public speaking engagement, preparation is essential and managing your nerves on the day is a challenge. I found that the interviews I attended after I’d started teaching in a full-time position were much less nerve-wracking, so if you’ve already had teaching experience and got over the initial horror of having to stand in a lecture theatre or classroom in front of students and adapt your prepared material according to their questions or how much time you have left in a lecture/seminar, you’ve already experienced the kind of spontaneous skills required in an interview presentation.

Many traditional interviews ask you to be available throughout the day and you will have a scheduled time to deliver your presentation in the morning, followed by some waiting around whilst other candidates deliver their presentations. Then you will typically be invited to a buffet lunch with members of the department, before the interviews get underway in the afternoon. The hardest part of these kinds of interview are holding your nerve in front of other candidates, being polite and friendly with everyone, and managing to eat buffet food whilst trying to ask intelligent questions of the academics at the department. As with conferences, it’s up to you to make sure you approach the people you would like to talk with, or who you felt connected with your presentation well, and use the opportunity to let them know a little more about you and your achievements (without seeming pushy in any way) as well as asking them further questions about their own research and teaching at the university (without appearing as though you haven’t done your research in advance of the interview). Other forms of interviews might only invite you for a presentation followed by an interview. In this case you wouldn’t meet other candidates so the experience can be more intimate and less unnerving.

PREPARING FOR THE INTERVIEW

Prepare thoroughly and know the department’s course structure, which modules you could teach (be aware of whether these are core modules at first and second-year level, or specialist option modules at third-year level which you may not be required to teach since they are tailored to individual members of staff’s specialist research). Think about how your proposed new modules would complement existing modules. This shows not only that you have understood the department’s overall strengths in teaching and research but have also “thought yourself into the job”, as they say, i.e. you’ve considered how you and your own strengths could work within the team and how your research and teaching could offer something different as well as helping to consolidate the department’s current provision and expertise.

Read up on the department’s research strengths and strategic aims. Read their REF report (available online), and look up their postgraduate researchers. Remember that the people in front of you are only human and usually enjoy being flattered (but not in a creepy way). They do not want to be told that their department is weak or lacking in any way and that you would be the person to fix this. If you really think that of the department and the university you shouldn’t be wasting their time in attending the interview.

Practice with a willing friend or family member. Put on the clothes you will wear for the interview and rehearse delivering your 10-15 minute presentation. This will be invaluable in terms of putting you at ease on the day, helping you to refine some of the things you will say off script or without notes (really important that you do this), as well as give you a sense of timing and just how much you can realistically deliver in the given time frame.

INTERVIEW DAY

If this is your first interview tell yourself that it’s fantastic experience no matter what. This is really hard when you’re unemployed or in a difficult financial situation but you have to take the pressure off yourself and try to relax. It’s rare for people to be offered the first job they’re interviewed for, so think of each interview as gaining experience and improving on your last performance – as well as being a really useful way of finding out your own unique strengths and qualities, and how you come across to people in an interview.

If you are fresh out of a PhD (or still completing one), or are an early-career researcher, it is crucial that you understand the value of your own potential and project this accordingly. This might sound completely counter-intuitive, but the potential of a promising ECR in my experience counts for more than an older colleague who perhaps hasn’t achieved that much for their career stage. I found this a helpful way to approach large interviews where I met other candidates who were much older and more experienced than me and whose CVs, publications and experience would have otherwise been very intimidating.

Remember to come across as a human being. Try to find a way to incorporate anecdotes (where appropriate) which show that you are flexible and easy to work with, enthusiastic and down to earth. This will make a big difference. Having sat on the interview panel side for senior appointments I’ve seen big names not be appointed because they seemed aloof or arrogant. Remember that they are hiring a future colleague and you could become the person in the office across the corridor from them, so they will want to establish whether they would enjoy working with you.

It is crucial that you are extremely friendly with everyone you meet on the day, from the HR contact, to the front desk security people, to the department administrator, to the undergraduate or postgraduate students you might be introduced to. Remember that you are being watched even when you’re not doing your presentation or interview (particularly at the buffet lunch). I’ve heard a department discuss how they didn’t appoint the candidate who didn’t bother talking to the junior secretary or office member.

Try to enjoy yourself! The worst part is the travelling to the department via an often unfamiliar train route (usually on the day), managing nerves and lack of sleep etc. I always tried to get to the interview location at least one hour early so I could have a coffee, eat something and read through my notes.

THE PRESENTATION

The presentation will usually be in a classroom in front of a panel of anything from 5-15 members of the department (and sometimes also academics from other disciplines, so watch the disciplinary jargon). You will likely have been asked one week earlier to prepare a 10-15 minute presentation in response to a specific question or two – often something like: “Outline your research for the next 5 years and describe a module that you would teach here.” Usually the room is arranged with the panel sitting in a horseshoe of tables and you have a table at the front of the classroom with a chair, and a projector screen and computer behind you. Some key tips:

Always standup for the presentation (if you are able to). Sitting at the front desk really doesn’t look good (from my perspective having been on presentation panels). You can then sit down to receive questions after you have delivered the presentation.

Make sure you are wearing clothes that you are comfortable in. (I favour trousers with pockets so that during the more awkward parts of the day e.g. at the buffet lunch you can feel more at ease).

Don’t use a script (as I tried to do in my first ever job interview presentation) and whatever you do, don’t deliver a conference paper.

Make sure you stick to your allocated time. If you run over you might be asked to stop and it doesn’t bode well for your timekeeping skills in lectures.

It’s really important that in your presentation you come across as well-prepared but also lively, engaging, fun and enthusiastic. This is the department’s chance to assess what you might be like in front of students lecturing, or taking a seminar.

This sounds hard but do try to enjoy yourself! It’s always nice to talk about the subject that you’re passionate about, that you devote all of your time to, that makes you jump out of bed in the morning. In my experience no one at interview panels or presentations is ever there to try to catch you out, and they just want to see whether they could work with you and what sort of colleague you’d be like.

THE INTERVIEW

As with the presentation, this is your chance to showcase your own achievements as well as to connect with, and try to win over, the panel. Some panels are more friendly than others and I’ve experienced panels where they deliberately tried to avoid much eye contact whilst writing copious notes. Body language is also important in this context, so try to be open in your gestures and relaxed in the way that you are sitting.

The interview questions will usually address 4 main areas required by the job (although these may vary depending on the specific requirements of the job and may be different, for example, for a teaching-only position):

The first question will almost always be “Why would you like to work at this university?”, so make sure you have a strong response which demonstrates that you have done your homework and that you value this particular department (rather than giving off the impression that any job will do, or any job in that particular part of the country).

– What are your 4 potential REF submissions?
– Are you a team player? Can you give examples of collaborative projects?
– Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time?
– What can you do in terms of quality assurance and your teaching?
– What can you do to encourage student participation in seminars?
– What would you do to attract PG students?
– Have you convened a team-taught module? What challenges would there be? How would you handle these?
– How do you conceive of the relationship between research and teaching?
– How comfortable are you teaching outside your research specialism?
– What opportunities would you see for bidding for collaborative research grants?
– What do you feel is the major contribution of your research?
– What do you feel appropriate learning outcomes would be for a Level 3 module?
– What is your approach to teaching? What pedagogical methods do you use?
– How do you enthuse students who are disinterested or disengaged?
– Studying for a Ph.D. can be quite a solitary activity. What experience do you have of working in a team?

Remember also that you’re interviewing them (this is hard to get your head around when unemployment is the alternative, I know). You will always be asked if you have any questions at the end of the interview, so make sure you have a prepared question or two.

AFTER THE INTERVIEW

From my own experiences and those of my friends and colleagues a number of different things can happen after the interview. You can reasonably expect to hear back from the department within one week. This almost always takes the form of a phone call from the person who chaired the interview panel, who will offer you feedback on your performance and the decision-making process. If you hear back on the same or next day it either means you’re going to be offered the job or you’re out of the running. If you have to wait longer this can be because the department and HR process is slow (remember that weekends and bank holidays will extend this waiting time, as will colleagues taking annual leave), or it could mean that the department have made a job offer to another candidate but are waiting to see if it is accepted and have you in mind as a second choice. Job application procedures are not always perfectly organised, and sometimes a certain amount of negotiating is taking place behind closed doors.

If you don’t get offered the job, don’t despair. Make sure you ask for feedback if it isn’t forthcoming (which it really should be). It doesn’t necessarily reflect badly on your research or performance. A common reason for not hiring a strong candidate can be that their particular research area is already well covered in the department and a different gap needs to be filled in terms of teaching (this can be the case with completely open job applications where no particular research field or period is specified). Having sat on both sides of various interview panels I can reveal that panels often disagree and in some cases a certain amount of wrangling can take place between different academics’ preferred candidates. Sometimes there are financial considerations which mean that a department can hire more than one of the candidates they interviewed if they can make the case for both being equally outstanding; similarly, they may not hire at all from the round of applicants they interviewed, and can decide to readvertise the post at a later date.

Don’t forget that the right job will be the job that you are offered. I know this sounds self-explanatory, but there’s only so many things you can do in terms of self-fashioning to make yourself the candidate you think a department wishes to meet or hire. Beyond this, your own personality as an individual and as a researcher come into play and you wouldn’t want to change who you are, or enter into a department that didn’t value your specific area of research. You are always going to connect more with some academics than with others, and this goes for your research profile too.

Dr Caroline Edwards is Lecturer in English at Birkbeck. She is author of the forthcoming monograph Fictions of the Not Yet: Time in the Twenty-First-Century British Novel (2015) and co-editor of China Miéville: Critical Essays (Gylphi, 2013), Maggie Gee: Critical Essays (Gylphi, 2013) and Adam Roberts: Critical Essays (Gylphi, 2014). Caroline has published articles, interviews and reviews in a number of journals, including Modern Fiction Studies, Contemporary Literature, Textual Practice, Telos, Radical Philosophy, Subjectivity, Historical Materialism, Left Lion Magazine and the New Statesman. Caroline is Founding and Commissioning Editor of the open-access journal of twenty-first-century literary criticism Alluvium. You can find her website here, and you can follow her on Twitter via @the_blochian.

21 Responses

One of the best I have read so far on the internet, many thanks for posting. As you said in your post, I had an interview on Tuesday last week and it’s Sunday today, haven’t heard from them. More importantly, I have another one coming this Wednesday, praying I get them both so I can choose. Sounds selfish doesn’t it? Thanks again Nadine!!!

Thanks Nadine. A very helpful tool indeed. I am preparing my interview for the associate lecturer position but I am not sure if I can still use your guide . Is there anything specific you can help me with in connection with the associate lecturer position interview?

Thanks this was a great post and really helped me prepare for my interviews. I was successful last week and offered a post over the phone. However it’s 10 days on now and i’ve heard nothing formal or received a contract. Is this a usual time scale for HR departments or should I start to worry?

I wouldn’t worry, Ben! They may be getting in touch with your referees, and it can take a while to get a contract through, so don’t panic. Do you have a confirmed start date? I would simply make sure you’re in touch with your line manager and that arrangement are being made that mean you know what you’ll be doing once your contract starts. You can always email HR, but for now don’t worry. And of course: congratulations! 🙂

Thanks so much for this very helpful post. It really helped me to prepare and also to ease my nerves for a recent interview. I found your advice was spot on. As with your experience, the panel that interviewed me were very nice and fair. The questions that you listed were almost verbatim what I was asked. The only advice I would add for others is consider the unique duties of the post. The position I applied for involved partnership with a non-HE organisation, so some questions were obviously directed towards that. Also, don’t make the mistake I did and assume that your presentation audience will include the full interview panel, always ask in advance exactly who you will be presenting to.

Excellent Post!
Breaking the application process up into sections really helps you understand the stages and if your not successful at a particular stage, this makes it easier to find your faults, before picking yourself back up and getting back out there!

Good post, but it says nothing about age discrimination….. I am an ex-academic, having spent over 10 years in a permanent research & teaching post at a top UK university. I moved into the commercial sector for about 1.5 years and then decided to get back into academia. I can’t even begin to describe how hard it is to get interviews. And when I get one they give the job to someone who is 15 years my junior! Universities tend to choose the most inexperienced candidates for junior positions (e.g., lecturerships) because they can easily put him/her on the lowest pay scale. Nobody talks about it, but I’ve seen it happen several times. It’s absolutely disgusting.

Hi , so I have a question, I am totally new to being interviewed in UK and I made it to the final round. On that same day I got a very late call from the chair saying that the second round had 6 applicants and it was down to me and another candidate but the other provided much better details about his funding so we decided to go with him. I clarified more on my funding sources..etc and wished them all good luck.
My question now is: if that’s actually the case, shouldn’t they have waited until the other candidate signs the contract before they got back to me?

Great post! It seems that it is typical to interview multiple candidates on the same day in the UK. I will be going to the UK for an interview soon. But the invitation letter I received does not indicate whether there will be other candidates. Is it typical not to tell candidates that there will be multiple candidates present? Thanks!

I came across this post while looking for general waiting times to hear back after an interview. I had an interview last Wed for a lecturer position and still haven’t heard… A bit hard not to go crazy checking my email all the time! From the sounds of your post though it seems I probably didn’t get it.

Excellent piece.
Just a couple of comments:
not all HEIs foreground research as is implied here, so make sure you have plenty to say about teaching. Be enthusiastic about teaching. We have declined to offer posts to people with excellent research profiles who appeared uninterested in teaching. It’s what you’ll spend most of your time doing at many HEIs, after all.

You may also find yourself giving a presentation to students as well as staff, so prepare for that eventuality. It goes down very well indeed if you can include any students present – ask for their views, for example, and encourage them to ask questions.

Thanks Caroline for an excellent piece. Some good tips in here. I would echo Srila’s point about feedback, though. I’m sure it’s because the panel are busy and it’s a difficult skill to give helpful feedback, but it’s very hard to get anything useful Useful, in my experience = negative. While it cushions the blow to hear that you were terribly good and they wish they could have given the job to everyone, this gives you nothing to work on for next time.

Great post with valuable tips. Agree with everything. The only thing to add is what happens before the interview itself: the application particularly the cover letter. I’ve read some horrendous cover letters in my time- long, unclear and generally poorly written. This makes a very bad first impression. Even well-written letters that are overlong don’t fare well since the hiring committee has to read hundreds sometimes. A good resource for letter-writing is the US Chronicle of Higher Education even as it caters to the US job market. It offers great tips including sample letters for different disciplines.

The other thing to add is that once you’ve got that coveted job and you are on the other side, hiring yourself then please please do push your department/colleagues to offer feedback to ‘rejected’ candidates. Very few places do, even on request. And its invariably nothing more than a platitude like ‘your teaching was not diverse enough’ or ‘you were too good’ (yes, this has been said!).

[…] ‘The Twilight Zone’ – has a few really useful blog posts on academic interviews. One of her guest bloggers wrote: ‘Don’t forget that the right job will be the job that you are offered’. You can apply […]

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